


Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine

by diadema



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 2018 Winter Holiday Gift Exchange, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Light Angst, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 14:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadema/pseuds/diadema
Summary: Gaby proposes a solution for Illya's nightmare... a "memory exchange" to keep the darkness at bay.





	Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Somedeepmystery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedeepmystery/gifts).



> For the incomparable Somedeepmystery: my dear friend, my treasured writing partner. Merry Christmas, lady! This one's for you. <3
> 
> This work is inspired by [this beautiful, magical post](http://naamahdarling.tumblr.com/post/149355013780/i-will-trade-you-one-terrible-memory-for-a-memory) and Mary Oliver's poem, [Wild Geese](http://www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/uncategorized/wild-geese-by-mary-oliver/). Both are very near and dear to my heart. I hope that in reading them (and in reading this story), you will find the same comfort and peace that it has given me.
> 
> Many thanks as well to my co-conspirator, SydneyMo, for looking this over for me!
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone! Comments always appreciated. :)

He is being buried alive inside his own body.

Anchored and weightless at once, he is paralyzed and disembodied. His jaw aches from its clenching and his ears are starting to ring, but for all the violence of his efforts, Illya can’t make his muscles cooperate.

He is trapped, locked in a prison of fear-fractured consciousness. The darkness seeps like blood into every corner of his mind. It stains his memories. Warps them into some kind of grotesque shadow theatre. 

It unfolds without preamble: a nightmare  _ in medias res. _ Scenes from his childhood are slotted out of order amidst all the other horrors he has seen, that he himself has inflicted. And among these moments already come to pass are all the ones he’s hoping never will. 

Illya thrashes wildly, strains and struggles and screams against this spell laid upon him. His parents, his partners, every life he has ever taken, every life ever taken from him… they haunt him now. He tries to claw his way out of it until a voice urges him to stop fighting. 

There’s a weight on his shoulder, a soft word, and he surrenders to it. Only then, can he wrench himself awake.

Illya bolts upright, dazed and disoriented as the room hurtles around him. The nightmare still has its talons in him, shuttering his eyes and trying to drag him back down again. Reality comes back to him in fragments. A low, feminine murmur. A warm hand slipping up from his neck to his cheek. A feeling, however hazy, that he is safe now.

_ “Mama?” _ he mumbles, though he realizes distantly that it can’t be. An anguished, childlike longing grips him, and then her hands do. A pair of slender arms wrap tightly around him. Illya tries to hold back the whimper as his forehead falls to her collarbone and his palms move to bracket her waist.

When she begins to card her fingers through his hair, he can’t keep his eyes open. She calms him in singsong German he doesn’t even try to translate. The words themselves aren’t important. It is the voice, that familiar, perfect voice that matters most as she holds him. 

Holds him until his hands no longer shake against her, until his breathing calms, and that very young, very primal ache inside him has been soothed. Holds him until Illya becomes  _ extremely aware _ of her presence: the ghost of perfume lingering on her skin, so very, very warm through the thin cotton of her pajamas.

He is acutely, desperately conscious of his hands on her… and of her hands on  _ him. _ It is miraculous. It is mortifying. Illya lifts his head and tries not to pull away from her too quickly—or, rather, he would if could ever manage to let go of her.

Gaby steps away first, but not before pressing her lips to the crown of his hair, so quickly and so softly, he’s not entirely convinced it did happen. That it  _ could _ have happened.

_ “Besser?” _ she asks, and he knows he is gaping at her, awestruck and lovesick fool that he is. His brain is slow on the uptake, but he finally manages to think in the proper language. He has enough sense to shut his mouth as he nods.

Otherwise, words like “yes” and “no” might come out as something else entirely. Like “I love you” or “please don’t leave me”. He really wouldn’t put it past himself.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

English. A much more neutral language. Less emotionally-charged, less compromising. He blinks at her, grateful. “No. I… I can’t.”

There is too much darkness within him to unburden, and she can’t know how many of his deepest fears revolve around losing her. And Illya would  _ never _ weigh her down with such sadness. Not if there were any way to spare her from it.

Gaby hums. He hopes she understands. “If you don’t want to talk,” she says, and there’s not even a hint of rebuke in it, “then you can listen instead.”

She takes hold of his hands and coaxes his fingers to uncurl from their fists. The mattress dips ever so slightly as she moves to sit cross-legged beside him. Illya shifts to give her space and angles his body to face her. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” she tells him. “You keep your secrets, but you let go of them for a little while. And, in return... I’ll give you a memory to take their place.  _ My _ memory. Hopefully, you’ll think it’s a good one too. Is that all right?”

Gaby smiles, bittersweet and gentle, as he nods. Her eyes are trained somewhere over his shoulder, but her gaze has already fallen out of time. 

Illya is expecting a story about ballet or driving or getting her first car to run, but what she says instead is, “My father took me to a planetarium when I was very young. It was…” she sighs. “It was magic. My first birthday after he left, I begged my foster father to take me back.”

“And did he?” he asks, almost forgetting his own history. 

Gaby is already shaking her head. “Berlin was occupied by then, and Jena was very far.  _ But, _ he did the next best thing.” She pauses for emphasis. “Turns out my  _ Vati _ could do more than just fix cars.”

The German woman grins, almost sadly at him. “He made me a telescope. I got to put the lens in,” she adds. 

Illya can picture it with almost painful clarity: those same eyes, demanding and inquisitive, small, clever hands itching to be put to work. 

“That night,” she continues, “we went up to the roof and looked at the stars together.” She laughs softly. “He didn’t know his constellations any better than I did, but it didn’t matter. We made up our own and told each other stories about them.”

Gaby reaches up to cup his cheek again, and Illya tries not to lean too heavily into her touch. “See?” she whispers. “You’re smiling.”

And he is.

Something light and warm and sweet blossoms in his chest, a surge of affection that radiates all through him. She smiles back at him. “That memory is yours whenever you need it.Just… please take good care of it for me, okay?”

Illya ducks his head, humbled. He can understand why it’s so precious to her and wonders just how many others like it she might have.

Gaby nods. “Good.”

She starts to move away when Illya holds up his hand to stop her. “Wait.” 

The words stall on his tongue, but mercifully, she doesn’t make him say them. “Would it help if I stayed?” she asks.

“Would you—I sleep…” he pauses. Takes a deep breath and tries again. “I seem to sleep better when you are close by.”

Another nod and then she is nudging him aside and pulling back the duvet. She slips under the covers and props herself up to face him. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll protect you.”

Illya can just make out the curve of her smile in the darkness. He huffs, a soft chuckle that cuts out abruptly when Gaby tucks herself against him. Her hand splays on his chest like an anchor, and he lifts it to his lips before returning it, long fingers curling around her palm. 

His other hand settles tentatively on the small of her back, and she hums, nuzzles sleepily into his neck. When he finally falls back asleep, Illya dreams of handmade constellations and the stories behind the stars.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'll leave you all with the closing lines of "Wild Geese":
> 
> "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,  
> the world offers itself to your imagination,  
> calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—  
> over and over announcing your place  
> in the family of things."
> 
> Much love to you all. <3


End file.
